Anagnosology (READING) with Dr. Adrian Johns
Clay tablets! Printing presses! Old timey audio books! Speed reading strategies! Attention spans! Dyslexia history! Literacy campaigns! Dr. Adrian Johns is an historian, professor, and author of the book “The Science of Reading” and we have a nice mellow chat about when humans started to “read,” what that means, being Hooked on Phonics, Dick, Jane, character languages, audiobooks, e-readers, school segregation, literacy rates, and how long we can focus at a time. He literally wrote the book on it.
Listen via Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Podcast Addict, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Visit Dr. Adrian Johns’ faculty bio at University of Chicago
Shop Dr. Johns’ books including The Science of Reading: Information, Media, and Mind in Modern America (2023) and The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (1998)
A donation went to 826LA.org and Glioblastoma Research Organization
Links to things we discussed:
Universal brain systems for recognizing word shapes and handwriting gestures during reading
Reading at the speed of speech: the rate of eye movements aligns with auditory language processing
Why Some Languages Are Written Right To Left
A Bill of Lading and a Merchant of London (and of Venice)
Inside the Milberg Gallery: Indulgences
Keitai Shosetsu: The Love-child of Technology and Literature
Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2023
The Evolution of the Written Word
History of Papermaking Around the World
A Very Brief History of Reading
Memory: Fragments of a Modern History
Sounding Out a Better Way to Teach Reading
Reading at the speed of speech: the rate of eye movements aligns with auditory language processing
Neo-Assyrian Cuneiform Lexical List
7 Oldest Known Writing in the World
Origin of “anagnosology” via Roland Barthes
A Talking Machine: The Birth Of Speech Synthesis
A Very Brief History of Reading
Modern Speed-Reading Apps Do Not Foster Reading Comprehension
The Tachistoscope Its History & Uses
Top 7 Most Famous Speed Readers of All Time
A Sociocultural Approach to Literacy
How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate
The Strange Afterlife of William McGuffey and His Readers
Sounding Out a Better Way to Teach Reading
Quantifying attention span across the lifespan
Dyslexia and Fonts: Is a Specific Font Useful?
Other episodes you may enjoy:
Anthropodermic Biocodicology (HUMAN LEATHER BOOKS)
Attention Deficit Neuropsychology (ADHD)
Witchology (WITCHES & WITCHCRAFT)
Quantum Ontology (WHAT IS REAL?)
Abstract Mathemetology (UH, IS MATH REAL?)
Pedagogology (SCIENCE COMMUNICATION) with Bill Nye
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Editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions and Jacob Chaffee
Managing Director: Susan Hale
Scheduling Producer: Noel Dilworth
Transcripts by Aveline Malek
Website by Kelly R. Dwyer
Theme song by Nick Thorburn